The Borg Queen joins Thor: The Dark World. Hugh Jackman promises The Wolverine won't be anything like Wolverine. Has a description of the first Iron Man 3 trailer leaked? Plus the latest encouraging reactions from Cloud Atlas test screenings!

Spoilers from here on out!

Top image from Cloud Atlas.

The Wolverine

Hugh Jackman confirms once again that this movie will have no connections to the other X-Men movies beyond his presence. Indeed, he even acknowledge why staying the hell away from X-Men Origins: Wolverine can only be a good thing:

"We've deliberately not called it Wolverine 2 because we want it to be placed and feel like a standalone picture. With an all-new cast and setting it in Japan, it's going to give us a whole new visual aesthetic. The approach to character means we won't be overloaded with mutants and teams and the like, so it'll be more character-based. I think in many ways it will feel like a completely different X-Men film. I'm just really glad it's happening. For a while it's felt like a rocky ride. I think it's the best idea we've had, the strongest script we've had and that now we really have an opportunity to make something really great."

Thor: The Dark World

Alice Krige, the Borg Queen herself (well, one of them anyway), reportedly revealed that she has a small, potentially unrecognizable role in the film, potentially much like Colm Feore's turn as Laufey the King of the Frost Giants in the first movie. Since Christopher Eccleston is thought to be playing Malekith the Accursed (although I'm not actually sure that's 100% confirmed just yet) and a stuntman mentioned that he was doing prep work to play one of the Dark Elves, the current speculation is that Krige would play Alflyse, the queen of the Dark Elves and the Svartalfheim realm. Because really, what else is Alice Krige going to play but an evil queen of some sort? That's just what she does. [Comic Book Movie]

Iron Man 3

Take this with as big a grain of salt as you can possibly muster (or perhaps as small as you muster — I never have figured out how it works with grains of salt), but a description of the first Iron Man 3 trailer has leaked. Here are some highlights:

"It opens with a voice over of Tony Stark talking about how the events of New York (I'm assuming the Avenger Movie) changed him, and how he's just not 'into it' anymore. First scene is Iron Man with battle damage, laying down amid rubble and taking [off] his faceplate to show a bleeding Stark. Scenes of him arguing with Pepper Potts in the armory (cool shots of alternative Iron Man suits including the red white and blue one we've seen already), press conferences, Tony looking solemn, Tony talking with someone who looks like a psychiatrist, and a short shot of Don Cheadle in military uniform (no War Machine in the preview)...We then get a voice over from Ben Kingsley, talking about how there there are no heroes and how he will teach everyone, especially Stark, a lesson. This is over scenes of the alternative Suits getting blown up, Stark going into surgery, and a fleet of helicopters launching missiles which blow Stark's home up and apart (the CGI looked nearly finished) and sending Stark and Pepper into the sea below. Then a close up of Kingsley with no helmet in the Mandarin armor.

You can check out the unabridged version at the link. [Ain't It Cool News]

Daredevil

It's looking increasingly likely that 20th Century Fox is just going to go ahead and relinquish the rights to Daredevil a couple months from now. Since the rumors of Marvel Studios letting Fox keep Daredevil in exchange for Galactus and the Silver Surfer have been called into question, the only option left for Fox may be to get a Daredevil movie into production as fast as humanly possible, perhaps with a co-financing deal with Disney to buy them some extra time. That plan, of course, requires them finding a director, and the only person who has actually said he wants the job, The Grey director Joe Carnahan, tweeted this yesterday:

Think my idea for a certain retro, red-suited, Serpico-styled superhero went up in smoke today kids...We shall see. Time is NOT on anyone's side.

While it's possible Fox just didn't like his idea and still wants to find someone else, you'd kind of figure they're very much at the "beggars can't be choosers" stage, assuming they still actually want to make this movie. As such, the safe bet is they have probably just given up on Daredevil. [IGN]

Catching Fire

The Color Purple actress Maria Howell has been cast as Seeder, one of the two former champion tributes from District 11 who return to fight in the 75th Anniversary Games. [SpoilerTV]

Cloud Atlas

A new round of reactions to various test screenings have emerged for Tom Twyker and the Wachowskis' adaptation of David Mitchell's giddily genre-straddling novel. The reaction continues to be quite positive, with some noting that it's unlikely to be an Oscar contender (to which I respond: who really cares?) and that it's a bit of a mess (to which I say: I'm not sure how it couldn't be at least a bit of a mess). Anyway, here's one of the more positive reviews, which seems to give one of the better overviews of what to expect from the film:

Most of the actors had either a cross-gender or cross-ethnic role. Notable mentions are Halle Berry as a white woman from the early 1900s, Zhu Zhu as a Mexican house cleaner, and Hugo Weaving as the biggest, ugliest geriatric nurse I have ever seen. For the most part, this works. It's definitely a bit odd to see it on screen but with the help of some truly phenomenal makeup work and great performances by the actors, the portrayals go from funny to believable pretty quickly.
[...]
This film is incredibly ambitious. The six stories are edited into one so there is little to no downtime during the film. The makeup and costumes will absolutely be nominated for Oscars while visual effects have a great chance as well because of how subtle and artistically done they are. This film is a bit goofy in ways. You have to be ok with Tom Hanks playing six different characters in the movie. You have to be ok with realistic stories being interlaced with far future stories. Self referential humor about absurd things. Overall our audience very much enjoyed the film. They gave it a decent round of applause at the end and it was pin drop quiet while everyone was filling out their opinion cards. I'm very interested to see how the public and critics enjoy it.

/Film has helpfully compiled a bunch more reactions. Check them out at the link. [/Film]

Bill & Ted 3

Now that this thing appears to be really happening and Galaxy Quest's Dean Parisot is reportedly on board to direct, it's time to talk about the story. Star Keanu Reeves explains how this belated sequel will very much acknowledge the fact that he and Alex Winter are both pushing 50 and how this movie plays around with the complex mythology (no, don't laugh...well, OK, maybe a little) of the Bill & Ted saga:

One of the plot points is that these two people have been crushed by the responsibility of having to write the greatest song ever written and to change the world. And they haven't done it. So everybody is kind of like: "Where is the song?" The guys have just drifted off into esoterica and lost their rock. And we go on this expedition, go into the future to find out if we wrote the song, and one future "us" refuses to tell us, and another future "us" blames us for their lives because we didn't write the song, so they're living this terrible life. In one version we're in jail; in another we're at some kind of highway motel and they hate us.

Grimm

Just in time for last night's second season premiere, here's showrunner David Greenwalt on what lies ahead for Nick this year:

"[T]he first year he kind of came to grips with all of this. This second season, it is going to be him coming into his own, but he's going to be challenged on so many levels–not only with all these things he learns from his mother, but with complications from Juliet. And there's a [host] of bad critters now coming to Portland just for Nick because he is becoming known now."

666 Park Avenue

Weeds guest star Aubrey Dollar has reportedly landed the recurring role of Annie, who first appears in episode four and is described as "an obituary writer who yearns to be a real journalist." Damages recurring actress Mili Avital will reportedly play "a lonely hearts woman who pines for romance and harbors a dark twisted secret", while Oz and Law & Order: SVU actor Mike Doyle will debut in the second episode as Frank Alpern, one of the main adversaries for Terry O'Quinn's character Gavin, the apparently evil owner of a paranormal apartment building. [TV Guide]

Being Human (UK)

The BBC has announced that Phil Davis, whose previous credits include guest spots in Sherlock and the Doctor Who episode "The Fires of Pompeii", will be playing a new character called Captain Hatch. Davis himself calls the character "marvelously disgusting", and here's the BBC's official description:

Captain Hatch has seen it all. At least he reckons he has. And whatever it is, he doesn't much like it. Stuck in a failing body, in a wheelchair, in a dismal seaside hotel, things aren't exactly sunny side up. Hatch embodies the worst in humanity – he's bitter, manipulative, obsequious and cruel. Quite the catch. But those aren't even the worst things about the aged army captain... beneath his decrepit exterior there lies within him a dark and toxic secret that could rattle your soul with fear.